Still polls apart

How many more members Vajpayee would require to form the government is difficult to say at present. His own party, the BJP, does not look like crossing the present tally of 182 seats. Even if it does by a few seats, it is going to be tough to reach the magic figure of 273. This is what any party requires to get the invitation from the President. That the constituents of the NDA are losing more than the BJP can be of little solace to Vajpayee. The overall strength of the coalition is lessening.

The BJP may have to woo individuals and the two-three member parties. It means coming down from the pedestal on which the party has been sitting for the last six years. Vajpayee's anguish over having led the 24 parties of different hues is understandable. But it is bound to increase because his wish for "a compact coalition" does not seem to be coming true. His task would become easier if the BJP were to get around 200. But there is a big 'if' when one sees the results of the exit polls. The travails of the Congress combination will not be less even if it reaches the figure of 160, as is the estimate. The communists who may be 50-strong have announced their support to any anti-BJP front but have also said that their backing would be issue based. They have predicted that the country is heading for the 1996-like situation when the opposition parties, including the Congress, evolved an alternative, a third front of secular parties.

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My information is that some parties have already talked among themselves about such a front. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who has been sounded on the proposal, is not opposed to the idea provided the front that emerges has a common minimum programme.

This happened even earlier but the ambition of the then Congress president, Sitaram Kesri, got the better of the understanding which the Congress had given. He wanted to be the Prime Minister himself, unlike Sonia Gandhi who has successfully pushed the issue into the background.

However, the scenario this time has changed. Very few parties or, for that matter, individuals have any commitment to principles or values. Secularism and communalism have come to be mere slogans. People having a record of long-standing association with the BJP have crossed over to the Congress. This applies to the Congressmen also. They too have bolted the party for the sake of ticket. And how does one describe the Congress decision to field candidates like Sajjan Kumar, who had been denied the Congress ticket since 1984 because of his linkage with the killing of the Sikhs during the riots that followed Indira Gandhi's assassination. The Congress has also included Himachal's Sukh Ram whom it had ousted at one time on charges of corruption. The Haryana governor, a RSS sanchalak, has made confusion more confounded by publicly seeking voters' support for Vajpayee.

In any case, combinations without ideology are opportunistic in content and temporary in nature. India has gone through a similar phase when the coalitions, cobbled together through the lure of office, have broken on the "division of spoils." The two general elections in the 1990s, within a span of 18 months, showed how true it was. If power is going to provide glue to coalitions, the governments are bound to be unstable.

Stretched beyond a point, they can end up in a mid-term poll. The country should seriously consider whether it should have a law to guarantee the Lok Sabha tenure for full five years. Such legislation is in operation in Germany. So far the system in India has shown enough resilience and overcome the deficiencies it has faced from time to time.

Parliament, by and large, has stood the test. But all this cannot continue indefinitely. There will have to be a consensus on certain basics in the country. It is all the more necessary because the people's faith in parliament is lessening day by day.

Yet this does not answer the question which a Pakistan TV network asked me the other day: Why do people vote in such large numbers? The 55 to 60 per cent, out of an electorate of 650 million casting their votes is, indeed, mind-boggling. In the first phase held on April 20, as many as 100 million people, equal to the voters in America, exercised their franchise. In the second phase held on April 26, the average again was between 55 and 60 per cent.

To say that the voters in India love democracy is too simplistic an answer. Indeed, they do. They proved it in 1977 when they voted out the mighty Indira Gandhi who had imposed the emergency and switched off the lights of democracy. What makes the voters queue up before the polling booths is their belief that they can change their plight through by changing their rulers, whether they are at the level of village or city (panchayat and municipality) or that of state (assembly) and at the centre (parliament). Over the years they have been trying this exercise. Not that they have succeeded but they do feel that their alienation is making the rulers to sit up and think of some steps to retrieve the people's faith. The confidence to change the rulers is getting converted into a desire to elect such a government which can give the people employment, water, electricity and roads.

It is true that the voters relate all elections to the living conditions and larger issues attract hardly any attention, as seen in the current Lok Sabha polls. But the governments also, increasingly, realise that they cannot last if they do not perform.

This is what has come to be called the anti-incumbency factor which is dreaded by governments in power. Chief Minister SM Kirshna in Karnataka and his counterpart Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh have done a commendable job. Their contribution to information technology which has made even America envious is substantial. But this has not got translated into benefits for the common man.

True, caste and communal considerations have come to affect the pattern of voting and the fortunes of political parties. Some have gained. For example, the BJP has progressed through communalism and the BSP through caste. Yet, they have not been able to divert people's attention from bread, their primary need. India has proved over and over again that a political party, however parochial and tendentious, has to spell out how it will improve the lot of the people. The voters have begun to see through the dust the parties raise. This is a plus point.

Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.